Tag Archives: Collard Greens

Start the New Year right!

Happy New Year! Here’s an encore post by request from readers. Enjoy!

HASTY TASTY MEALS BLOG

If you’re southern, chances are you have some kind of greens cooking up with some cut of pork, along with a pot of black-eye peas and a skillet of cornbread. Maybe your black-eye peas are part of a Hoppin’ John dish, which is mixed with spices and rice. It’s a New Year’s Day tradition and believed to bring good luck.

There are other traditions, worldwide, but I grew up with the southern version. I resisted it, too, until my adult years when I discovered the food tasted good together. Legumes and leafy green vegetables are healthful, so eating them on New Year’s Day starts off the year on a positive note, at least nutritionally. But where did the ideas that such cuisine brought good luck originate?

Who knows for sure. There is a theory that because the pig digs with its snout in a forward motion, the pig symbolizes progress…

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Happy New Year

Are you a traditionalist about eating a new year’s day meal for good luck? Or are you superstitious? For me the tradition is an excuse to eat a bunch of favorite southern foods. This year’s menu will be pork chops cooked with collard greens, served with a side of Hoppin’ John. Here are the recipes:

RECIPES

Hoppin’ John

Ingredients:

1 cup dried black eye peas
1 cup uncooked brown rice
3 cups water
½ cup chopped onion
1 can tomatoes and green chilies
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon Cajun spice seasoning

Combine the first 4 ingredients in a 4-6 quart/liter pressure cooker and bring to a boil. Add remaining ingredients, bring to pressure, lower heat, and cook under pressure for 15 minutes.

Remove from heat, allow pressure to drop for 10 minutes, then quick-release pressure according to manufacturer’s directions. Carefully open cooker, fluff rice mixture with a fork, and serve.

Serves 4-6

Pork Chops and Collard Greens

Ingredients:

4 boneless pork loin chops
1 Tbsp. olive oil
2 cups water

16 oz. collard greens, washed, stemmed, and chopped
salt and pepper
1 Tbsp. sugar or sweetener of choice
1 tsp. apple cider vinegar
½ tsp. ground nutmeg

Directions:

Preheat the pressure cooker pot (use at least a 6 quart size). Brown the pork chops in oil on each side. Remove the pork chops and add salt and pepper to the chops.

Add the water to the pot, bring to a boil, then add the collard greens in bunches, allowing each bunch to wilt down. Add the vinegar and sugar to the greens. Place the pork chops on top the greens.

Secure lid, and bring to pressure. Cook for 15 minutes. Remove pressure cooker from heat and release pressure according to the manufacturer’s directions. Remove pork chops, toss the greens with salt, pepper, and nutmeg, then serve.

Makes 4 servings.

Secure lid and bring to pressure.

Secure lid and bring to pressure.

This menu won’t guarantee a prosperous, trouble-free 2013, but it will provide you with lots of fiber and nutrition. Enjoy!

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Filed under black-eye peas, cooking, Healthful Eating, Pork Chops, Recipes, Vegetables